William F. Buckley Jr., 1925-2008

Bob Avakian, Berkeley student and later leader of Revolutionary Communist Party: Antics of distraction

It was kind of a spring thaw, a lot of things were bursting loose, a lot of intellectual and cultural ferment was going on. The Beats were breaking out -- they had started up in Greenwich Village in Manhattan and had come out to North Beach in San Francisco. I remember William Buckley came to debate some liberal about the first amendment, loyalty oaths and all that kind of stuff, and Buckley started these disgusting antics to distract the audience while the liberal was talking. At the time, I was of course still strongly opposed to communism and accepted all the conventional wisdom, or "un-wisdom," about communism and how horrible it was. (Early 1960s)

From "Ike to Mao and Beyond: My Journey from Mainstream America to Revolutionary Communist," by Bob Avakian (Insight Press, 2005)

Tom Brokaw, broadcast journalist and author: Long balls to deep right

I met and interviewed [for an Omaha television station] Bill Buckley, who filled the role of the national conservative intellectual as a columnist and editor of the magazine he had founded, National Review. When I tried my best fastball questions on him, he was like Ted Williams in the batting cage, flicking them away to deep right field. I came away thoroughly chastened and utterly charmed. (Mid-1960s)

From "Boom! Voices of the Sixties: Personal Reflections on the '60s and Today," by Tom Brokaw (Random House, 2007)

Jackie Robinson, baseball player: On the defensive

I joined the national headquarters of Republicans for [Lyndon] Johnson, based in New York, and accepted speaking assignments whenever I could to tell black and white and mixed audiences how deeply I felt that [Barry] Goldwater must be overwhelmingly repudiated. It was during the [1964 presidential] Johnson-Goldwater campaign that I had one of my confrontations with the articulate, eyebrow-raising William Buckley, owner of National Review magazine and star of the controversial "Firing Line" television show.

I was booked on a television Conservatism panel which included Bill Buckley, Shelley Winters and myself. When my friends and family learned I had consented to participate, they were aghast ...

I was glad to receive these warnings. I didn't have the slightest intention of backing out, although I already had a healthy respect for Buckley's craft as a debater. The apprehensions of my friends made me create an advance strategy which I otherwise might not have employed. I lifted it strictly out of my sports background. When you know that you are going to face a tough, tricky opponent, you don't let him get the first lick. Jump him before he can do anything and stay on him, keeping him on the defensive. Never let up and you rattle him effectively. When the show opened up -- before Buckley could get into his devastating act of using snide remarks, big words and the superior manner -- I lit right into him with the charge that many influential Goldwaterites were racists. Shelley Winters piled in behind me, and Buckley scarcely got a chance to collect his considerable wit. A man who prides himself on coming out of verbal battle cool, smiling and victorious, he lost his calm, became snappish and irritated, and, when the show was over and everyone else was shaking hands, got up and strode angrily out of the studio.

From "I Never Had It Made: An Autobiography of Jackie Robinson," by Jackie Robinson with Alfred Duckett (Ecco/HarperCollins, 1995)

Andrea Dworkin, feminist and author: Elegant, brilliant and wrong

I think it's worth everything to say what you believe. There are always consequences, and one must be prepared to face them. In this context there is no free speech and there never will be.

I think especially of watching William Buckley, on his "Firing Line" television program in the 1960s, debate the writer James Baldwin on segregation. Buckley was elegant and brilliant and wrong; Baldwin was passionate and brilliant and wore his heart on his sleeve -- he was also right. But Buckley won the debate; Baldwin lost it. I'll never forget how much I learned from the confrontation: Be Baldwin, not Buckley.

From "Heartbreak: The Political Memoir of a Feminist Militant," by Andrea Dworkin (Basic Books/Perseus, 2002)

Larry L. King, journalist and novelist: Sprightly verbal show

The William Buckley piece, [a profile] ... in Harper's, got me tagged as "controversial" ... I had great fun researching the Buckley piece, which included interviews with such writers as Murray Kempton, James Wechsler, Michael Harrington, Irving Howe, Norman Mailer and (by telephone) my old benefactor John Kenneth Galbraith. And I enjoyed, too, the sprightly verbal show toward which Mr. Buckley is inclined. He also treated me to a scary ride up Park Avenue at rush hour, from downtown to midtown Manhattan, perched behind him on a motor scooter while I hugged him for dear life. In matters of politics and the world's realities, however, I suppose my piece judged the conservative iconoclast as a bit blockheaded. Mr. Buckley naturally was not taken with that evaluation, and refused an ad in his own National Review which Willie Morris hoped to place there to advertise my Harper's piece ... (Late 1960s)

From "None But a Blockhead: On Being a Writer," by Larry L. King (Viking, 1986)

Larry King, radio and television talk show host: Couldn't escape me

Miami is a personality town, and in Miami, I was a personality. In addition to working at WIOD, where I was also the color man for the Miami Dolphins, I had a television interview show on WTYJ and a daily newspaper column -- first in The Miami Herald, then in The Miami News, and finally in The Miami Beach Sun-Reporter. During the 1968 Republican convention William Buckley was in town, and I had him on the television show. He said jokingly that he was afraid to come back to Miami because he couldn't escape me; I was everywhere he turned.

From "Larry King," by Larry King with Emily Yoffee (Simon and Schuster, 1982)

George Leonard, magazine journalist: Conservatives were in

Fifteen senior journalists from the nation's most influential media descending from the sky in a luxurious jetliner and being swept away to the centers of the nation's worst ghettos -- seven ghettos in seven days. This junket to the Third World culture within our own borders was cosponsored by the National Urban League and Time-Life ...

We took off from Chicago around lunchtime on Saturday ... Bill Buckley sat nearby at a table next to the cockpit door, typing away at his newspaper column ...

Our tour ended in Washington ... We had elected Newsweek editor Oz Elliott to present our "findings." In the middle of Elliott's summary, Bill Buckley was spirited off for a tête-à-tête with President Nixon at the White House. The conservatives were in, no fooling. (1969)

From "Walking on the Edge of the World: A Memoir of the Sixties and Beyond, by George Leonard (Houghton Mifflin, 1988)

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